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Monday, February 02, 2009

Lost - Saving Private Widmore

The first episode aired the same night as the season premier - I was a bit behind getting caught up on my TV viewing.

Ben's mission to reunite the Oceanic Six is a colossal mess. Kate is on the run (and is encouraged to stay on the run by Sun), and Hurley has turned himself over to the cops in desperation. Ben should have figured out that Hurley wouldn't trust him; if he weren't such a blithering idiot he would have had Jack on cell phone. At least Jack and Sayid are together.

Ben is working with Mrs. Hawking, who had appeared to Desmond after the Swan Hatch implosion. She also happens to be Faraday's mom, who Desmond is seeking now, under Faraday's instruction in the series opener. She has given Ben 72 hours to avert whatever island-based space-time continuum rupture threatens the Earth.

(Where's Hiro Nakamura when they need him? Oh, on another network - never mind.)

Widmore turns out to be one of the Others, having been on the island in 1954 under Richard Alpert's command. What the Others were doing back there is still a mystery, which hopefully will unfold as the Lostaways pop to different time periods.

The "Jughead" nuclear bomb featured in the second episode actually existed - read the Wikipedia articles on the Operation Castle program and the Castle Yankee nuclear test.

It's interesting that the Lostaways can interact with the past timeline - sometimes killing or being killed in the process - without changing it. This is actually a lot less headachy than the time paradox alternative.

How will Hurley be sprung from jail? Will he be aided by one of those dead people who keep visiting him? How will Ben find Kate? Was Sun smart enough to give Kate her cell phone number? How will Ben find Sun - and survive? Will the remaining Lostaways witness the original shipwrecks of either the Black Rock or Rousseau's boat? Will they see their past selves? Will they see the first arrival of DHARMA? How old is Alpert, and where did he come from? What in the heckity heck do the Others want with the island, anyway? What does Widmore want with it? What does Ms. Hawking know about the island, and when did she know it?